


Growth Through Adversity

by roebling



Category: Bandom, Panic At The Disco
Genre: Angst, Gen, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-11-13
Updated: 2006-11-13
Packaged: 2017-10-23 03:04:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/245583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roebling/pseuds/roebling
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A story about growing up and growing apart set in the early days of PATD.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Growth Through Adversity

There are no more cans of soda in the cooler behind the driver’s seat and the heat is making the pavement shimmer in the distance. The air conditioning broke three weeks ago; they decided not to get it fixed. It’s September. They are traveling north and the weather is turning cool.

Spencer wipes his forehead with the back of his hand and closes his eyes for a delirious moment. He sees hot red orange starbursts of light against the dark backs of his eyelids. He swallows, loudly. It’s only been five seconds … maybe ten. He keeps his eyes closed even though they want to open so badly. Another ten seconds pass, and now his heart is pounding. He could go on like this forever: he’s moving forward into a spangled darkness, into a shimmering nothing, eyes closed, oblivious, forward forever into a warm and welcome night …

He opens his eyes. There are no oncoming headlights. He doesn’t have to swerve or brake or narrowly avert any catastrophe. He exhales. He hasn’t realized he’s been holding his breath. The steering wheel is wonderfully solid in his hands: the leather is worn and part of it is peeling away. The road goes on exactly directly ahead for an almost impossible distance. Far, far off, it merges into blue shadow that might foretell mountains, or might just simply be a trick of the evening light. The sun is setting, but the heat will not abate.

He looks to his right. Brent is staring at him intently behind the familiar curtain of his long dark hair.

“Why didn’t you say something?” Spencer asks, harshly.

Brent bites his lip. “What were you doing?” He seems to sink further back into the seat, disappearing into the big grey sweatshirt he is wearing. “Do you want to pull over and let me drive?”

“No,” Spencer says. “No. Fuck.” He glances in the rear view mirror: Ryan has a filthy towel thrown across his face and his headphones on; Brendon is passed out in the back. “It’s seven o’clock. I’m not falling asleep.”

Angrily Spencer rolls his window down all the way. The breeze is fresh but his hair flies in his face; he tucks it behind his ears and wonders if he should cut it. Far off, far off, he sees a pair of oncoming headlights; he was beginning to hope for nothing but empty broken highway all the way to Chicago. They are racing through a smudged purple yellow evening, racing across the perfectly flat surface of the earth; they might as well be alone.

He’s not tired, but Spencer is overwhelmed by the urge to close his eyes again.

And he’s angry.

“Do you even care?” he hisses.

Slowly Brent looks up (he finishes sending the text he was writing first; Spencer heard him slowly fumbling with the little keys on the new phones they all have). His hand is curled impotently in his lap. The air is peculiar and heavy; looking at him in that sweatshirt with his lank hair hanging in front of his face makes Spencer feel slightly faint.

“Are you okay?” Brent asks.

Spencer’s vision wavers slightly. He has nothing to say. He plays a brief game in which the steering of the van is directed not by the wheel but rather by his gaze; he must stare straight ahead, only straight ahead, with superhuman rigidity. Distraction leads to fiery apocalypse (he sees the van collide head on with a thirty-ton semi truck in a nova of broken glass). When he blinks, everything stops for one millionth of a second.

“Stop it,” Brent says.

Keep playing the game, Spencer tells himself. If he looks over, they’re all doomed. Everything’s riding on him.

He’s never had more responsibility.

The sun sets behind them and half of the heavens is dipped in pink and gold glory, but Spencer does not look back. Brent sniffs wetly and turns back to his phone; the screen lights his face alien blue. The van moves forward into the purple rippling distance, the far off headlights draw nearer and nearer, and if Spencer tries hard enough he can forget about everything and pretend he’s alone. The two boys sleeping in the back are as good as dead; nothing he can do would wake them.

Brent, he’s as good as invisible.

The sun sets and the night sky is darker than Spencer’s ever seen it and studded with cold stars, but the air settles heavy and wet on his skin. There’s nothing, Spencer thinks. There’s nothing to it but to go forward. He keeps his eyes open.

Brent doesn’t say another word.

\--

When Ryan eats tomatoes he makes a fairly obscene slurping noise. That noise, taken together with the fleshy red pulp of the fruit, makes Spencer think unfortunate things.

And, Ryan is lying flat on his back on the couch with his legs hanging off and his pants are cut so low that his whole stomach from his navel to his hip bones is bare.

Ryan takes a bite; some of the red glistening seeds spill down his hand. Spencer worries a hangnail and ponders the justice of Ryan’s gratuitous display. It’s hardly fair to the tomatoes.

“Aren’t you tired?” Ryan asks.

“No,” says Spencer.

He is tired. He is tired and he is filthy; his jeans are soiled and stick to his thighs.

“Oh,” says Ryan.

There’s still makeup on his face.

Spencer gets his phone from his bag and fiddles with it, but he has no one to call. And yet, his contact list is not empty. He closes his eyes. The walls are too bright, and the light bulbs too high a wattage. Everything looks garish and flat. He taps a dancing rhythm out on the arm of the chair he’s sitting in.

The door creaks open.

Brendon comes in. Ryan looks up. Ryan’s had a haircut, and his hair bristles. Spencer doesn’t like to pat Ryan kiddingly on the head anymore: the product he uses makes his hair crackly stiff.

Brendon throws himself down on Ryan’s bed with surprising force.

Facedown, he mumbles something to the bland blanket.

Ryan takes a big bite of his tomato. His teeth look small and pearly.

“So,” he says.

Spencer gets up and knocks the chair a little; the noise is negligible but Ryan looks at him and Brendon looks at him and he’s abashed. He smiles and then wishes he hadn’t smiled and he goes into the bathroom. When the door is locked he clothes his eyes and counts to fifty and then opens then and turns on the cold water. He glances at his watch. He frowns at himself in the mirror. If his mother saw him …

If his mother saw him, she would tell him to get a haircut. He’d meant to the day Ryan cut his hair, but he’d changed his mind. But Brendon cuts hair and he can do it, if they can find a pair of good scissors.

Deft, he bends and he rests his head on the cool edge of the white sink. He doesn’t feel sick. He isn’t tired. Rather, he feels wonderfully knotted and unknotted, and savors the ache in the muscles in his upper back.

And yet he wants to be tucked away somewhere. He wouldn’t like anything more than that.

The water is still running. Mustn’t be wasteful, he thinks, and he shuts off the tap and has a staring contest with himself in the mirror; he blinks first, and loses.

They don’t jump apart when he opens the door. Of course they don’t. It’s not like they didn’t tell him, first of anyone. And if he knows …

There’s nothing else to say, really.

A wave of torpidity overwhelms him. Even the air in his lungs is suddenly leaden.

“Well,” he says, and he grins, which makes Ryan grin, which makes Brendon bite him cheerfully on the cheek.

“Haha,” Ryan laughs.

Spencer asks, “Where’s your key, Brendon?”

Brendon scoots forward on the bed and rolls over. Spencer reaches into Brendon’s back pocket and takes his key. Ryan covers his mouth with his hands. His big eyes crinkle.

The dull room and the dull light and the sullen echo of someone walking down the hall beyond the shut door feel like sensations from a dream.

He fishes his own keys out of his pocket and drops them on the bed. The door to the other room of the suite is still ajar.

Ryan says, “Good ni-”

But Spencer has already shut the door. He presses his palm flat. It’s a thick door; it will deaden enough sound.

He puts two fingers to his neck and feels for his pulse. He presses his fingers into the soft place under his jaw and presses and presses but he doesn’t feel anything.

Brendon’s bag is sitting at the foot of his bed, half open with tee shirts falling out. Spencer’s suitcase is neatly packed but it’s in the other room; these are the indignities he’s made to suffer.

He takes off his jacket and he takes off his shoes and he takes off his socks and rolls them up and tucks them in one of the shoes. His mother taught him to do that so he didn’t lose them. He turns down Brendon’s bed and takes his wallet and Brendon’s keys and his phone out of his pocket and lines them up on the nightstand. In an identical bathroom he brushes his teeth and washes his face and eyes himself in the mirror. There’s something unsavory about his reflection these days, something not entirely on the up and up about the guy in the mirror. Something almost nasty.

But that has to be an improvement over looking like a chump, he thinks. It must be.

He doesn’t feel tired enough to sleep, but he will try. He opens the bathroom door and shuts off the bathroom light and tugs off his jeans as he stumbles over to Brendon’s bed. Nothing seems properly grounded, but the sheets are cool as he slides under the covers and the blankets are heavy and he pretends he’s been encapsulated somehow, completely smothered by the smooth cool cotton sheets. Buried. He reaches over and turns out the light.

There’s a heavy muffled “Fucker,” Brent curses. “I was reading.”

Spencer closes his eyes. The lights are off, his eyes are closed, and he’s sleeping. Sleeping, he thinks. Sleeping. Already fast asleep and well away from the dull little room and those heavy sheets. Already gone, already going someplace ephemeral and faint.

“Spencer,” Brent says.

“Spencer,” Brent says, again. “What the fuck.”

Sleeping, Spencer thinks again. If he thinks it with enough conviction Brent will hear him. Hear him or ignore him or give up or wait and by that time Spencer will be asleep, because sleep is soaking him slowly, and his body feels heavy and distorted and muffled warm, and soft, as it can only feel soft in dreams, a softness that is not bodily but like he is made out of something somehow less than flesh …

“Fuck you, Spencer,” Brent says. His voice is low and sullen and Spencer’s eyes are closed but he can see him sitting hunched over, round shoulders rolled, dark hair hanging in his face, and not scowling but not smiling. “Fuck all of you bastards.”

Sleeping, Spencer thinks again.

And he is asleep.

\--

There’s a tender empty echo; the room is so large, and now, so empty. All empty, the sea of seats and the vast desert of the orchestra section are magnified to at least twice their actual proportions. It’s an awful place. Spencer really feels that. It’s maybe the worst place they’ve ever played a show, but they haven’t played shows in many places. He feels a thousand feet away from the front of the stage, up on the drum riser, neatly out of side, mostly out of mind.

That is what he feels even though he knows it is not true because Ryan is staring at him and Brendon is asking a question and he doesn’t know the answer and he wonders if he should, because nobody else has any of the answers lately and if there is no one that he can turn to Spencer will shoulder the burden and figure things out. It’s not because he cares the most, because he doesn’t, because he was never meant to be a rock star: in almost every way that matters, Spencer is absolutely mundane. Or, he used to be, and removed from his present context, he gets the idea he would be again. Because, when he thinks about it, (and he does think about it) he imagines going back to the hot, flat, dull place he comes from and he imagines that it would seem as if six months of glory were nothing but a dream, passing instantaneously, with no lasting effect. Nothing will feel unfamiliar. Nothing will be different, and people, out of courtesy’s sake, won’t even bring up his failure.

The person he has become could be erased. He knows it.

Brendon’s phone rings. He answers it. Ryan and Spencer stare.

“Hey,” Brendon says.

“Oh,” he says. “Yeah.”

“No, that’s cool dude,” he says. “I’ll talk to you later.”

With a flick of his wrist he flips his phone shut.

“Was that ...?” Ryan asks.

“Pete,” Brendon says glumly.

“Goddamn it,” Spencer swears.

Ryan frowns.

“Call him again,” Ryan says. “Spencer, you call him again …”

Spencer is holding a pair of drumsticks loosely in his right hand. He rolls them against one another. He closes his eyes. He wishes that he could go, now, somewhere far away from all of this, because he doesn’t care. Really he doesn’t and he is tired and he is ill and he knows when he stands up he’ll feel all his blood rush to his head, because that’s what happens lately. And it’s not his job, but Ryan’s eyes are wide and his voice resounds all through the empty auditorium. By widening his big eyes and pouting his red lips, Ryan manages to make himself look the most pitiable innocent. Spencer knows better, but he falls for it anyway, every time.

He stands up and walks around his kit to sit on the front of the riser, kicking his legs. He gets his phone out and dials Brent’s number and waits and waits and it rings once, twice, three times and then the familiar message begins and Spencer, frustrated, says nothing and ends the call.

“Happy?” he asks Ryan.

Ryan doesn’t look satisfied or chagrined or anything, really. Spencer thinks he looks flatter now. Flatter, and smoother, and it is harder to read in his eyes what he is thinking; there’s nothing to read now, perhaps, or it is disguised by the foolish makeup.

“He might have picked up,” Ryan mumbles.

Brendon laughs suddenly, harshly, the noise erupting into the great volume of silence.

“And pigs might fly,” he says.

This is a clumsy and tired witticism, but Spencer smiles, for reasons that are partially his own.

“This is fucked up,” Ryan mumbles. He sounds close to tears, and Spencer wouldn’t be surprised if he were, because he’s vested more into this than any of them: it’s his music, and he got them a record deal, and if he goes home, if he’s forced to retreat, it will break him. Ryan’s always been a fatalist.

There’s that awful silence. It oppresses everything Spencer thinks of saying. Nothing’s going to happen. They’re stuck, he thinks, with a sinking sickening sensation. They can’t do anything, or at least they won’t, because that would predicate some kind of resolute position, and Ryan is looking at him helplessly and Brendon is looking at Ryan apathetically and Spencer is staring out at the distant dim cavernous depths of the auditorium and he knows what he should say but he doesn’t want to be the one to say it, so he’ll keep his mouth shut for the time being. He doesn’t want to presume things, and would they even listen to him?

Ryan stands, and wraps his arms around himself. He’s so frail-looking. He always has been. Spencer’s mom, a homemaker with nothing more to do than the laundry and plan dinner and go to the market, has always loved to baby Ryan, to buy him little gifts, to cosset him whenever possible. Whenever Spencer feels overwhelmed by the same urge, he wonders if perhaps it’s genetic, or if Ryan’s mastery of pathos is just that complete.

“I’m going to make a call,” Ryan snuffles, and he disappears off into the darkness of backstage.

Spencer swings his legs idly. Brendon gets up and comes over to the riser and lays his head in Spencer’s lap. With Brendon physical intimacy is like a prerequisite for any serious conversation. It unnerves Spencer still (even now he feels his cheeks growing warm) but he does not complain.

“Do you think I can bribe him?” Brendon asks.

Spencer rests his hand on Brendon’s neck. “I don’t think it would do any good,” he says truthfully. “What do you have that he wants?”

Brendon makes a dissatisfied noise. “Nothing,” he mumbles. “But Pete is pissed.”

“Fuck Pete,” Spencer says, and because Ryan is gone Brendon doesn’t make any lewd jokes. (The only point of the lewd jokes is to make Ryan upset or embarrassed, after all.)

“Fuck Brent,” Brendon mumbles. “This band is not a meal ticket.”

“We could …,” Spencer says. “We have to talk to him.”

“And say what?” Brendon snaps.

Spencer shrugs. Brendon’s fingers dig into his thigh a little. Brendon makes Spencer nervous, sometimes, when he’s like this, because he’s unpredictable, and Spencer likes the predictability of routine. Well, that isn’t true; what he likes is being able to anticipate, and Brendon is subject to mood swings and whimsies and difficult to pin down. Spencer wants … Spencer wants to push him away and to get up and walk outside without a jacket on and he wants to shiver in the autumn air and he wants to miss his family and his bedroom back home and he wants a lot of things but he can’t have them because he’s stuck here now, for now, at least.

“What would you say?” he asks.

Brendon snickers, gurgling. “I wouldn’t say a thing,” he says. “I think we should just leave him at a truck stop one day.”

“Dumb ass,” Spencer says, without passion, but he cannot help but think that the plan does have its merits.

\--

On the day that the dressing room smells like Easter, Spencer wakes up late, after they’ve gotten to the venue, and can’t find any clean clothing. Laundry. He hates laundry. He slouches into the dressing room without having had any coffee and is confronted with the potent aroma of an immense bouquet of white lilies. They are what smell like Easter. Easter, and funeral homes, although Spencer has only been to one funeral, when one of his mother’s aunts died the summer before he turned fourteen. He’d had to wear an ill-fitting suit and withstand interrogation from hordes of uninteresting relatives; it had been a moderately painful experience.

Ryan is holding the impressive bouquet of white lilies in two hands, like a bride. He is standing in the center of the room with a slightly dazed expression on his face. When Spencer opens the door he looks up and tips him a nod. It’s only eleven but Ryan already has already applied pink and brown makeup to his right eye. It drips down his cheek, halfway, and because his left is unadorned, it makes him look eerily lopsided.

Spencer fills a Styrofoam cup with coffee and lets it warm his hands. Ryan regards himself intently in a mirror. Brent slouches dejectedly on the couch, donut in hand. Spencer can’t remember the entirety of the prior evening. There was something … but it’s all gone, and his head aches, and he doesn’t think he did anything bad, because he doesn’t enjoy that sort of thing. It was just that was frustrated, so frustrated, and it was better to pretend he was enjoying himself than to let his anger weight him down.

“A fan gave them to me,” Ryan says, when he sees Spencer looking at his flowers. “They’re lined up out there already, you know.”

“Not for us,” Spencer says, tartly.

“Not all of them for us,” Ryan says thoughtfully. “But some.”

“Well, more,” agrees Spencer.

“Yes,” Ryan says.

The coffee tastes burnt but Spencer isn’t too surprised. His phone vibrates, telling he has messages that he has not yet checked, but he doesn’t care.

“Hm,” says Spencer. “Is there a shower?”

Ryan glances at him. “Yes, but Brendon’s in there now.”

Spencer rolls his eyes and curses himself for oversleeping.

Ryan puts down his flowers and gets his little brown book out of his bag and starts to studiously write in it. When Ryan writes, he focuses with such intensity that everything else becomes irrelevant. Knowing that their conversation has come to an end, Spencer finishes his coffee and lies down on the filthy carpeted floor. This is a nice venue, but they’re not the first band on the bill, or even the second, so they’re tucked away in little hole that looks like it might recently have been a janitor’s closet. Spencer is hungry, but he doesn’t want to eat. Spencer is tired but he can’t sleep. When Brendon’s finished he’ll be able to shower at least.

Spencer counts to fifty and then makes a list of his ten favorite movies and then makes a lit of his ten favorite albums, and then wonders if it would be possible for them today to go to a record store with a decent selection, because he hasn’t bought any CDs in a while, and he’s a little sick of the one’s he’s got, and he’s listened to all of Ryan’s, and borrowing Brendon’s, which are mostly bad 90s pop, is not an appealing option.

“Is that my shirt?” Ryan asks.

Spencer looks up. “What?” he says.

“Is that my shirt?” Ryan asks again.

“I didn’t have anything clean,” Spencer says. He rolls on his side and draws up his knees and grins, but he’s facing the other way and nobody can see him.

“God,” Ryan says. “Is it my job to make sure you do laundry?” He huffs and turns back to his diary.

Spencer rolls over onto his back and shuts his eyes.

The door to the bathroom opens and Brendon bounds out. He’s wearing red gym shorts that are too large for him and his wet hair is brushed back. He stalks into the center of the room, makes a mock pistol with the index finger and thumb of his right hand, James Bond style, and stares owlishly at all the room’s occupants.

“Oh my god,” Ryan says. “You’re dripping water everywhere.” His voice is uncharacteristically shrill.

Brendon lifts an eyebrow. “This is a bust,” he says. “Now shut the fuck up.”

“One,” says Brendon. “Two. Three.” He walks over to Brent and rams his right index finger right between his eyes. Brent looks up, looks lost, looks so fucking stupid that Spencer almost feels a little bad for him.

“You’re dead,” says Brendon, and he blows an imaginary plume of smoke from the tip of his finger.

\--

It’s so hard to sit still. It’s so hard because it tickles: Spencer isn’t used to this and he isn’t sure how Ryan learned how to do it and he doesn’t know if he wants to know, or if it’s one of those things they’ll never talk about. He’s sitting on one of his legs and it’s going numb and his eyes hurt from trying so hard not to blink. The makeup goes on waxy and too thick; Ryan’s hand trembles slightly. It’s perceptible, because they’re so close. Ryan steadies himself with one hand on Spencer’s shoulder: with anyone else, it would be an unspeakable violation of personal space.

And it’s taking so long, and Ryan’s concentrating so hard that he’s biting his tongue. It’s a habit he always had and when they were kids Spencer made fun of him for it. The makeup feels heavy, like a second skin, and Spencer wonders if that feeling comforts Ryan, or if he just likes the blur of androgyny.

“You’re good at this,” Ryan says. “You stay so still.”

Spencer starts to smile but stifles it. He’s pretending. He’s pretending he’s a statue and he can’t move because he’s not alive and granite doesn’t move.

“All done,” Ryan says, capping the brow pencil he’s been using. He puts it away neatly in the case where he keeps the rest of his makeup. (And Spencer wonders, when did that start? What does that mean?) “Do you like it?”

Spencer is staring at himself in Ryan’s mirror, which is handheld and blue and says ‘RYAN’ in all capital letters on the back. Brendon decorated it with little sticky shiny stars one time, but Ryan didn’t like those, or thought they were making fun, so he took them off. His eyes are lined smoky and there are black arabesques on his cheek and blue and green and it looks so, so strange. He doesn’t look like himself but he doesn’t look like anyone else, either.

“You like it, right?” Ryan asks. “It’s good?”

“It’s good,” Spencer said. “You made the most of what you had to work with.”

He’s trying to be funny, or something, because self-depreciation is comfortable enough, but Ryan frowns an ugly little frown and says, “That’s a stupid thing to say, Spencer.”

Spencer doesn’t say anything but ducks his head a little, because what’s he supposed to say to that.

“You,” Ryan says. “You’re like the fucking best,” he says quietly. “You think I don’t know that.”

“Ryan,” Spencer says, quietly.

“It’s true,” Ryan says, with such unexpected conviction that there’s nothing Spencer can say to disprove him.

\--

Spencer tries to avert his eyes but he can’t help wanting to look, because beautiful things attract the gaze, and he doesn’t have an iron will. He never thought – before, of course – that he was interested in boys, because he wasn’t then, but it might be that he never knew the right kind of guys or it might be that he wasn’t then the right kind of guy because now when Ryan decides to wear the tightest pair of jeans that Spencer’s ever seen he doesn’t want to deride him. He stares. He can’t help staring, not at Ryan’s long slim thighs encased in dark denim, and not when Brendon walks around in his underwear after a show.

It’s not just them. Hardly, because a few weeks ago he ended up in the corner of a club with some kid who he’s seen but whose name he doesn’t know and whose band he doesn’t know necking desperately, hands slipping under tee shirts, greedy and fast and not about anything other than how good the kid’s shoulders had looked and how when he’d been caught staring the boy hadn’t laughed at him, or rolled his eyes, or anything like that, but smiled warmly and came over and initiated a slippery conversation that Spencer could hardly follow then and can’t remember now, but it was a good conversation because it led to them feeling just intimate enough that making out was comfortable and didn’t seem at all seedy.

But. He’s not Ryan. He’s not Brendon. He’s certainly not Pete. Spencer knows his worth and he doesn’t do things that would make him look like a fool, make him look like he’s trying too hard. He’s not trying, is the thing. It’s not like he’s done anything other than agree to be in this band with Ryan and play the fucking drums.

This is just a perk. Half the idiots at this bar are wastes of time, but the other half are might worth cultivating acquaintance with and Spencer isn’t going to throw away the opportunity. And people want to talk to him, something that surprises him less and less every day. The band is– or is becoming – famous, and it’s not like he was entirely unprepared for this eventuality but it’s making him lose his mind anyway.

He’s not drinking; he doesn’t drink for Ryan. He’s never told Ryan that, but Ryan must know it, and on nights like tonight when Brendon’s on his sixth beer and making an idiot of himself Spencer feels so proud of his unnoticed restraint. He thinks Ryan will notice one day, or, if he’s already noticed, tell Spencer how grateful he is. He’d like that. He really would.

Brendon’s talking to two dudes whose expressions are halfway between bemused and disgusted. Spencer wouldn’t mind seeing him make a fool out of himself, but it would reflect poorly on the band, and someone has to be watching out for them, so he slips through the crowd and pats Brendon on the shoulder and steers him away, smiling apologetically at the two men he was accosting.

“Spencer,” Brendon says. “Spencer, you dumb ass.” His arm is thrown around Spencer’s shoulder and he’s a little guy but he’s surprisingly heavy as he goes suddenly limp, nearly sending them both to the floor. “I was talking to them.”

“You were making an ass out of yourself,” Spencer mutters, helping Brendon to his feet.

“Wasn’t,” Brendon says. “Wouldn’t.”

“Would,” Spencer retorts. “And you frequently do. Come sit down.”

Brendon rolls his eyes. “Yes, mom,” he says, snippily.

But snippy or not Brendon yields and slumps heavily into the seat Spencer finds him. His eyes are half closed and his mouth is hanging open and his breath is foul and sharp and Spencer is tired of having to do this, so tired.

“You have to get your act together, Brendon,” Spencer mutters. “This isn’t funny.”

“Is it supposed to be?” Brendon retorts. “What the fuck difference does it make to you?”

Spencer should say it’s because he’s Brendon’s friend but he’s not going to bullshit him like that, because they both know that’s not the real reason. “You’re an embarrassment,” he says, monotone.

“And you’re a fucking model of admiration and composure,” Brendon slurs, pulling Spencer down so he’s crouching on the floor. “Who the fuck do you think you are?”

Spencer narrows his eyes. “I’m just looking out for the band,” he says.

“Fuck the band,” Brendon says, pulling Spencer closer. “This band is a fucking disaster.”

Spencer rolls his eyes. “It’s not a disaster, Brendon, and if we actually took the time to think about what we need to do right now instead of going out and getting wasted …”

“Lord spare me this sermonizing,” Brendon intones, placing his palms together in a false supplication.

Spencer stares at him. His back is cramping from crouching and he’s tired and he feels suddenly, horribly close to tears, maybe, and he wants to make Brendon shut up, because this is like some kind of a game for him, and it’s not a game; it’s their livelihood now, and it’s all Spencer fucking has, and he’s not going to let it go.

“You are more of a disaster than you want anyone to know,” Brendon hisses, getting angry, trying unsteadily to get to his feet. His eyes are red and the bar is dark and Spencer stands up. The music they’re playing is awful and he is overwhelmed by an urge to leave so powerful it hits him like nausea. Brendon is leaning against the wall, pale and sweaty.

“Where are you going?” Brendon asks, as Spencer turns to go.

But Spencer doesn’t answer.

“You are a fake,” Brendon screams, his voice straining the darkness, shrill.

Spencer hears but he pretends that he doesn’t. He leaves Brendon in the dark and he walks away.

\--

Ryan kisses him the next afternoon. Spencer thinks it’s a dream at first; he’s lying on the couch with the sunshine warm on his back. He’s slowed down. He’s not asleep, really, but he’s almost asleep and it seems like every moment is just eternal, an infinitely warm and soft and wonderful golden dream. His body feels heavy and awkward, his face feels rather numb. He doesn’t want to think about anything and he’s not thinking about anything except how good it feels to be warm and here, and then couch dips as someone sits down.

It is Ryan, and Spencer can tell because he just knows, because they are best friends and they are practically psychic, or not really, but it’s a good thing to think sometimes. It’s Ryan; he doesn’t say anything and that makes Spencer nervous. They haven’t talked much. There’s no need for midnight phone calls when they’re on the same bus, and Ryan is preoccupied with things that he doesn’t share, or can’t share, which is worse but Spencer thinks probably closer to the truth.

Spencer shifts and opens his gummy eyes, and smiles, and presses his face into his pillow, and stretches and he’s still not sure why Ryan’s come, but he’s glad enough, because sleep can stretch to accommodate too, and Ryan’s lying down next to him, and this isn’t something they do, but it’s not something they don’t do, either, or have never done, or something, even when Spencer was just a little punk, it was always different with Ryan.

Ryan presses next to him on the couch and his eyes are red like he’s been crying and Spencer wants to ask why but he can’t form the words so he just smiles and Ryan smiles back at him even though it seems halfhearted. The couch is not wide; their legs are entangled and Ryan’s slipping his arms around Spencer’s shoulders and it looks like something but it’s not that, at least Spencer doesn’t think it is because he’s thought about it but only behind partitions of shame and secrecy, because Ryan is his best friend and it doesn’t seem right to think those things about your best friend.

But then Ryan kisses him, not chastely. And it’s soft and warm and slipping something and Spencer’s only half awake, or maybe a little more but not fully, and he doesn’t think something like this would happen to him waking so it must be a dream, but he opens his eyes and Ryan’s hair is in his face but he’s so close and their noses bump awkwardly and neither of them really move, and it’s so strange, and then Ryan opens his eyes too, and they’re so big and they’re so brown.

“Spencer,” he says.

And Spencer smiles. “Thank you,” he says.

“Oh, god,” Ryan says, and his voice cracks like he is close to tears, which he is because they spill down his pale cheeks and Spencer can taste the warm saltiness on his skin, which he does, and they kiss still, and press together, and Ryan sobs and Spencer can feel him shake through three layers of cloth and he doesn’t hold him or even touch him, but Ryan clings.

And then Ryan sits up and wipes his eyes with the ragged cuff of his long sleeved shirt and they’re red and he’s not smiling but Spencer still is and he sits up too, and he feels misshapen from sleeping all curled up on the couch and he knows his hair must be a mess and he wishes he weren’t thinking of these things right now because it’s not the moment for it, or it shouldn’t be, but Spencer can’t help but retain a certain level of autonomy, even at times like this, because if he’s guarded it’s only because he knows that’s the only way he can keep himself safe, even from someone who knows him as intimately as Ryan knows him, who knows him as good as from the inside out.

“I hate it,” Ryan says. “I hate him.”

Spencer is still running half-speed, lagging from sleep and he doesn’t know who Ryan is talking about at first.

“He’s just,” he starts. “It’s hard, Ryan.”

And it is hard and maybe he hasn’t given that enough weight because it’s so fucking hard sometimes and why should he blame someone who is just a fucking kid, as much of a kid as he is?

“I know,” Ryan says. “But it’s not fair to us. It’s not fair to me. I don’t know what the fuck I’m going to do.”

It’s not that bad, and Spencer knows it’s not as bad as all that but maybe Ryan’s worldview, in which everything is magnified by ten, is contagious, because he doesn’t know either and it’s not fair when they’ve put in so much fucking time, because he made the choice and this is his life now even when he doesn’t want it and even when it’s making him crazy.

“I don’t know,” Spencer says.

Ryan laughs pessimistically. “If you don’t know, and I can’t think, and Brendon doesn’t care,” he says. “We’re fucked.”

“No,” Spencer says. “No, no. It’s not that bad.”

Ryan laughs again and leans across Spencer and kisses him again, this time not so softly, not so gently, not at all.

\--

Nobody will go to the mall with him and Spencer loves the mall; he loves to look at people and he loves to look at things. He liked it even when all he could afford was maybe a new CD; now it’s even better. Brent agrees to come at last because, Spencer thinks, he is sick of sitting in the bus with two people who aren’t not speaking to him so much as ignoring his existence. They take someone’s car; Spencer drives. It’s a cool day and the sun is faint and the sky is white. Spencer needs a heavier coat, because he’s been shivering in his sweatshirt for days. Winters aren’t like this in Las Vegas. The weather’s never been so intent on mirroring his mood.

It’s stupid of Brent to come with him because Brent doesn’t like to shop and is really just looking for an excuse to talk, because he does talk, from almost the moment they get into the car until long after Spencer’s given up trying to drown him out with the radio. He talks about everything, but mostly he talks about nothings: like what he did the night before or some girl he met or someone he talked to a party or some joke he told. Spencer doesn’t care about any of that bullshit and he doesn’t hate Brent, except abstractly, but he’s sick of listening.

They walk around and Brent slouches and doesn’t want to go into any of the stores Spencer wants to go into and it’s dumb and Spencer wishes he’d never suggested going.

“What do you want to do?” Spencer asks.

Brent shrugs his sloped shoulders.

“Well why did you come?” Spencer asks.

“Don’t you start too,” Brent says. “Don’t tell me you’re turning into one of them.”

Brent drops onto a bench and runs his hand through his hair. Spencer remembers back in high school (oh, so long ago – a whole ten months) when he’d first gotten to know Brent and Brent had seemed older to him then, seemed like someone he wanted to get to know, and they’d been so excited to have him in the band. But that was so long ago; back when, for a brief moment, he and Ryan had been the same height, back before they’d ever, ever imagined that it would be like this.

“That doesn’t mean anything,” Spencer says.

He sits down next to Brent even though he really just wants to leave him.

“No,” Brent says. “It’s true and you can’t see it because you’re just as bad. You think this is going to last forever? That anybody really gives a shit about us? We’re disposable, man.”

“You’re an asshole,” Spencer snaps. “That’s really what you feel? Right now?”

“Well what else would I feel?” Brent retorts. His voice is rising. “It’s not like we had any say in that damn album. Ryan thinks he’s like the next Leonard Cohen, and Brendon’s having a fucking grand old time, but if the album doesn’t sell or if we screw it up, what have we got left?”

“That’s not going to happen,” Spencer says with a certainty he in no way feels.

Brent laughs sharply. “How can you say that? We don’t mean shit dude, especially you and I.”

“That’s not true,” Spencer says.

“Oh, you think it’s not?” Brent retorts. “They’re the ones write the fucking music and they’re the ones that do the interviews and they’re the ones who call the shots and that’s fine but when we’re as good as invisible remember that I’m telling you this now.”

“This is real life, Brent,” Spencer says. “It’s not a fucking movie. Christ.”

Spencer gets up and he looks around because what a fucking waste of his life this is, with this dumb fucker who can’t just take an opportunity that’s been handed to them on a silver platter.

“Don’t get mad,” Brent says, sounding now a little more desperate, although Spencer doesn’t know what he could be desperate for. “I’m just saying, dude.”

“You’re not saying anything,” Spencer says as he stalks angrily towards the escalator. He doesn’t want to be here anymore and he doesn’t want to be with Brent but now he’s stuck here and it’s only noon and they don’t have to be back until fucking four o’clock.

“I don’t want to get you pissed, Spence,” Brent says quickly, walking just as fast as Spencer is walking, right at his heel. “I just … I know you know what bullshit all of this is. I’m not going to be a cog in Ryan’s dream machine.”

“Ryan is my best friend,” Spencer says levelly.

Brent says, “Yeah, yeah, right. I know that but fuck, Spence, you dropped out of goddamn high school for the dude and did he even say thank you?”

Spencer closes his eyes and he remembers what it was like when Ryan kissed him and he remembers also what it’s like every time Ryan goes to Brendon and he remembers feeling so bad and so fucking ugly and unready and how hard he tried to make everything work and to work himself and Brent is right, in a way, not even in a little way, but Spencer doesn’t want to think about it and he won’t and if he doesn’t think about it and if he tries hard enough everything is going to be fine. That’s what he feels and that’s how it works and it’s true, in a way, because he did hold Ryan on the couch and he tasted the salt on his cheeks and there’s that. He’ll always have that, now, that softness, and Ryan’s bright eyes. He’ll have it and nobody else ever will.

It’s like the worse teenage cliché; fighting in a stupid mall, with a stupid friend, over stupid nothing, even though it’s really about everything, at least as much as the band is their everything, and maybe that’s the whole problem in a way, but there’s no other way, because if Spencer doesn’t surrender to this fucking thing he’s going to get left by the wayside, and he’s a quick learn, which is why he can look the part now and say the words that need to be said and maybe poor Brent is just too slow because he’s lagging or he’s too scared or maybe too smart to do what needs to be done. But he doesn’t realize that there’s no other option; not yet, anyway.

“Spencer,” Brent is saying. “Spencer.”

“What?” Spencer says.

“I’m sorry,” Brent says.

They’re standing in a mall in who the fuck knows where in front of a Hot Topic (Spencer’s favorite store when he was thirteen and lived in oversized punk tee shirts; now, he would be ashamed to go in there) and already Spencer is overwhelmed with such guilt and such regret for everything that he wants nothing more than to be done with it, or to be back in Nevada, or to be somewhere far away, alone, somewhere cold and still where nothing matters as much as all of this bullshit seems to matter.

“I don’t know what they fucking want me to do,” Brent says.

“I don’t know,” Spencer says, because it’s so funny the way that Brent is making this into some kind of us verse them when it’s not at all, because Ryan is a fucking disaster, practically lost half the time, and Brendon doesn’t give enough of a shit to take sides and it’s just … a mess. There’s nobody calling the shots and they’re moving too fast and it’s nobody’s doing but the velocity is painful and it’s like the earth is falling out from under their feet.

“Whatever,” Brent says. “Whatever.”

\--

Spencer can’t sleep because the van is cold and they’re moving too quickly and too quietly down a road painted silver by the moonlight. He’s never been further from home and he’s never been more afraid, somehow, than he is speeding through this alien landscape: mountains and trees and narrow roads that wind and it might be hours before they see any sign of civilization, or anything really other than old trees with argent leaves.

“Do you want me to drive?” he asks Brendon.

Brendon looks over at him. “I’ve got it,” he says.

“I was just offering,” Spencer says, and he closes his eyes because he can’t take any more sharp retorts.

“Sorry,” Brendon says, sounding not contrite but not hostile, not really.

Ryan’s asleep in the back and Brent’s on someone’s bus. He called an hour before they were due to leave and told them he’d meet them there. It’s so late that the world has frozen; everything is still.

“You know,” Spencer says.

“What?” asks Brendon, without looking at him.

“You know what’s going to happen,” Spencer says.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Brendon says.

Spencer laughs, a little. “If you don’t know, don’t worry.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Brendon says. “Dude.”

Spencer doesn’t say anything because if Brendon doesn’t care enough to make the connection and see what has to be done it’s not his fault. And the more Spencer does think about it, the more excited he is: scenarios play themselves out in infinite variation in his head. He is triumphant, he is debased, he fails, they all do; every possible outcome has been accounted for. And he’ll do it. He’s so scared and he wants to turn his head but he’ll do it if nobody else will because he might be the youngest but maybe he’s the strongest, because he’s not scared of someone who’s stupid enough to admit they’re scared. Spencer would never betray himself like that.

\--

These are moments of infinite bliss: they aren’t his songs but he’s on stage and he feels capable and content and he doesn’t have to think, and that’s the most precious thing. And his hair is soaked and his shirt sticks to his skin and he looks like a dope (he’s seen plenty of photographic evidence) but he doesn’t care at all, because every night is more or less this narcotic and the thrill is new but he can’t imagine a day when a stupid show, when playing for stupid teenage girls and people who are here for another band and people who hate them, is any less elating.

When they’re finished he feels so stretched, so spent. He’s always tired afterwards, but always most alive, and he grins at Brendon in the wings but Brendon’s brow is creased and he’s already cursing.

“Everyone notices when you fuck up,” he’s snarling. “Everyone in that entire fucking audience can tell when you miss your clues, jackass.”

Brent’s frozen; his hands are in his pockets and he’s worn and they all are but Brendon’s eyes are dark and this is bad, but Spencer’s heart is still in his throat.

“It was one song,” Brent says slowly, in his own defence, because nobody else is saying anything.

“Don’t fucking try that,” Brendon says. “It was one song that was fucked up, because you can’t get your act together. If you came to rehearsals, if you were around for sound check, if you actually gave a shit, maybe then it would be one fucking song, but it’s a hell of a lot more than that and you know it.”

“Nobody noticed anything,” Brent says. “The audience is more interested in how fucking gay you can be on stage with Ryan than any of the music, so don’t try to tell me that they noticed that I came in a few chords too late.”

“I noticed,” Brendon says. “And Spencer noticed, and Ryan noticed, and I’m sure everyone backstage listening to us noticed, and our audience, no matter why they’re here, deserve your fucking respect, because even if they didn’t notice, and even if they wouldn’t notice if you had fucked up five songs, or if you weren’t fucking on stage at all, we owe it to them to give them the best fucking show we can.”

“Oh Christ,” Brent says. “Listen to yourself.”

And that is what does it because Brendon throwing himself at someone three inches taller and fourty pounds heavier and it’s not going to end well, and they’re both kind of pathetic, slamming into wall and throwing facile punches and Brent’s not doing anything – not even now – except putting his arms in front of his face and trying simultaneously to push Brendon away. And Brendon is screaming but it’s all just … pathetic, really, and yet exhilarating, like something out of a movie: pain and the dark corridor is grubby and Spencer’s still reeling and he can hear Brent grunt and hear the fleshy sound of two bodies connecting. Spencer is shaking, fraught with tremors so bad that he can feel his teeth clack together and he knows as he sees two men who he should think of as brothers but can’t even bring himself to feel anything for strive against one another that a line has been crossed and everything is degraded and Ryan’s gone, because Spencer saw his face and he was white as a ghost or whiter, almost blue.

They’ve been pulled apart and both are red faced and flushed and people are coming running because this isn’t normal shit; this is bad, and everyone knows it, and Spencer feels ill, feels sick, and everyone talking, asking him what’s going on, and there’s a crowd and his head is spinning and he knows what he has to do, he knows, and there’s nothing else he can say but that he knows and it needs to be done and no one else will do it.

He wishes only that he were not so eager, not quite so glad for this chance.

\--

Before he’s even unpacked, his cell phone rings, and he’s so tired he considers not answering it. The tour has left him drained like nothing’s ever left him drained before; he’s so tired he feels empty.

But it might be important.

He glances and the number is unfamiliar.

“Hello?” Brent says.

“Brent?” Someone says.

Brent is not surprised it’s Spencer, although maybe just a little hurt, because he doesn’t want to think that it’s all of them against him.

“Hey,” he says, as causally as he can manage.

“Hey,” Spencer echoes. “We need to talk.”

They do, but neither knows why, because they both know already what will be said.


End file.
